


Nightmares

by Reilith



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Feels, HuntersHex, Perc'ahlia, Vexcy, Vexy, critical role - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 13:09:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7641604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reilith/pseuds/Reilith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Percy starts having Orthax related nightmares and starts avoiding people, especially Vex'ahlia. He knows it is all his fault. No wonder Orthax returned to haunt him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nightmares

It started again.

Only small snippets at first – coiling smoke, rising from the fog of his dreams. A faraway voice, indistinguishable from all the whispers of his dead family and people he killed. People who died because of him. But it grew. As he left Whitestone behind to travel and try to do _some_ good to balance out all the horrible things he’d done, the voice came trailing back, bringing the darkness he hoped he abolished that day under Castle Whitestone.

_“Percival….“_

_“Percival… You and I are one.“_

_“You know it…”_

_“You can’t run away from what you are…”_

He jolts awake, pistol in his hand already, prepared to aim at the darkness. But there’s no one around. Sweat coats his brow as he rises from the comfortable bed of the enchanted manor, his mind filled with images and sounds he must know are not real.

“It’s just a dream, Percy… Calm down,” he advises himself as he puts on his coat over his sleeping clothes. Another jittery night for Percy. He sighs and leaves for his workshop. Nothing like late night tinkering to soothe the nerves.

But it continues.

Days, weeks, months pass, and he starts dreading going to sleep. Unlike common nightmares, that can’t catch you when you are dead tired from all the fights and running, these come to him most when his body and his mind are weakest.

And the voice… That voice. Dreadful, malicious, horrifying. Something he left behind, come back to haunt him. He knows that voice well. It had soothed his fears when there were no others, it gave him fuel for his vengeful anger… It gave him power to end the suffering.

Except it didn’t.

Now he knew how he was betrayed, by his own senses and self, drowned in enough pain to allow himself to stoop so low.

Orthax was no saviour.

The voice was a temptation, one he gladly indulged to get his way. But that was in the past. So why was he still dreaming of that cunning voice, when the demon was gone and he, Percy, had it so much better in life?

It baffled him.

It gnawed at him enough that it became noticeable.

Even darker circles under his eyes, sarcastic comments as means to drive people off, stale quietness around him during meals…

But he shrugged them off. Better not to worry them with his own wretched antics.

Keyleth stopped asking after a very particular comment about her strained relationship with Vax. Scanlan only made rude comments, and he could ignore that easy enough. Pike’s calm worry pierced his heart every time he’d notice her look at him, but she respected his distance.

The only one that didn’t give up was Vex. So he started avoiding her.

One night after such a vivid nightmare of smoke engulfing him, seeping back into his pores, and his own will extinguished under the pressure of Orthax’s voice, he was woken up by the dark-haired ranger, shaking him back into consciousness.

“Percy. Percy! Percival!”

Like an angel, if he believed in angels still, her voice plunged him from the drowning darkness, back into his own body.

“Vex… Vex’ahlia,” he quickly tried to compose himself, scrutinized by her gaze.

“Are you alright, dear?” she asked in a worried tone.

“Oh yes, quite… Quite alright I’d say,” he replied, fingers clawing under his pillow for reassurance of his gun.

“Yeah, and I am the Raven Queen in disguise,” Vex’ahlia replied sarcastically.

“You are? Well, you chose an interesting time to divulge this information.”

She smacked him weakly on the shoulder, unaware of how much that one touch calmed his nerves.

“Percy, I am serious. I came to check on you, ‘cause I could hear you screaming from across the hall.”

His expression turns grim. Screaming? He wasn’t screaming… Was he?

“As much as I’m glad of your concern, darling, I think you should go back to bed.”

She only continued to stare intently at him.

“Really,” he continues, his voice cracking a bit. “I am alright. It was just a common nightmare.”

“Well, I don’t believe you.”

He sighs.

“Honestly, I don’t know what you want me to say to you.”

“Maybe you could start with an answer. Why have you been avoiding me?”

Her beautiful eyes seemed to be burning into him as they locked their gazes. He looked away first.

“It’s… It’s nothing.”

She made a small sarcastic noise in the back of her throat as one of her brows arched. He stumbled, trying to get out of the bed.

Surprisingly, Vex’ahlia pushed him, unknown strength keeping him down. His heart started drumming loudly in his chest, and he hoped that in her intent, she didn’t notice.

“Okay, okay… I’ll tell you. But you must promise not to laugh.”

She kept the pressure of her arms against his shoulders for just a moment too long after that. She let him go, instead sitting at the foot of his bed. He noticed how her unbraided hair swayed around her face and neck as she settled down, legs crossed.

“I’m listening.”

He let out another sigh.

“I believe I’m being haunted.”

“Haunted?” she repeated the word, eyebrows narrowing in question.

“By my old friend Orthax.”

“Certainly, you can’t be serious.”

He just stared at her.

“Either that or I am going insane. Either way, it’s not looking good for me.”

“Why would you think that?” she asks, voice laced with worry. Her tone and her expression were the exact things he wanted to avoid. He didn’t want to give her any more pain than he already did. Guilt rose inside the pit that was his stomach. He stooped his head, unable to face her.

“I… I don’t want to worry you guys. It’s probably nothing.”

A soft, warm hand on his. He inhaled sharply.

“It is not nothing. Not if it’s torturing you like this.”

“It’s not torturing me. And if it were, it doesn’t matter anyway. I well deserve it,” he replied, still looking down.

A loud slap across his cheek. His eyes widened and his palm flew to his face to cradle the injury. The masochist in him rejoiced at the pain. Exactly what he deserved. A small voice, almost out of earshot, laughing at him…

He snapped his head in the direction, but the whisper was gone. His heart thundered in his chest.

“Did you hear that, Vex?” he asked, voice shaking.

She kept silent. He finally looked at her, taking a deep breath to prepare himself for the hatred he expected to see.

Instead, her beautiful eyes were gleaming with un-shed tears.

“Ohh, my poor Percival.”

His mouth opened in protest, but he choked at the words.

How could this magnificent person, fantastic and caring woman, be crying for _him_? This poor, wretched bastard, a shell of a man, shade of a person, not worth any regard; especially not _this._

And the words just started spilling out.

All the guilt, all the pain and suffering, all those days he cradled his dark secret. Whispers in the dark, mutterings in the night, telling him all he had left was his revenge. He wasn’t good for anything but that. He didn’t worth more than that.

And the reeling joy he felt for just a moment when Orthax was defeated – a small glimmer of hope for a life he might be able to lead from that moment – it was all gone when the voice returned in his dreams.

“I’ve been keeping it quiet for so long. I guess, it is because, deep down, I know I do not deserve your sympathy. I am a horrible horrible man, I have nothing else to lose but my sanity, and if that’s what must go as the last payment for the services I’ve acquired, I do not want any of you to bother with it.”

Vex’ahlia just sat and stared at him, eyes big and gleaming with tears that started escaping down her cheeks.

“I _deserve_ this. I’ve done horrible things. I do not deserve respite from my suffering, and that’s why Orthax came back for me.”

He finally finished, his words exhausted, expression blank. Vex’ahlia rose from her position and leaned closer. He raised his hands to keep her away, but she wriggled between them, pulling him into a full two-arm hug, head pressing on his neck, her wild-scented hair in his face, not even an inch of free space between them.

He tried to mutter a word of refusal, but instead found himself holding her back, hugging her fiercely, tightly, so close to him as if he could drown inside her soul if he tried hard enough.

He didn’t even know how much time passed, until he noticed he was sobbing in her hair and she was whispering gently into his ear, her fingers calmly combing through his hair.

“Percival… You are one of the best people I know. You deserve so much more than you got in life. You saved me and our friends so many times. Trust me when I say it, you deserve better than you got.”

“You were tricked when you were at your lowest; Orthax knew how, it was not your fault. And it was not your fault the Briarwoods came to Whitestone. None of it was your fault. So please, for my sake if not yours, stop blaming yourself for every bad thing that happened around you.”

“You are not a bad person.”

With that, she placed a fluttering kiss on his neck, and then another on his cheek. She tasted salty tears. Neither of them dropped the embrace, and that night Percy wept more than ever in his life.

He might have not slept much, but for the first time in a long time, his night was calm, and no nightmares came to haunt him.

Only a lingering scent of woods, feathers and something sweeter, intangible, as he finally dozed to sleep in the arms of the only one who could make all his problems go away.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a prompt on tumblr by mr-reblogbutton.


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